ARTICLES ABOUT LAPTOP BY DATE - PAGE 5

A Tinley Park man accused of burglarizing an Orland Park funeral home and stealing a Mercedes-Benz from the property was ordered held on $150,000 bond Thursday. Orland Park police said Nicholas A. Palmera, 23, entered Lawn Funeral Home, 7732 W. 159th St., about 1 a.m. Sunday and stole receipt books, business keys, a decorative wood gavel and a special-edition golf club. He then unlocked an apartment inside the funeral home where an employee was sleeping, Cmdr. John Keating said.

Winnetka police are warning residents to protect their homes after six reported home burglaries in which thieves made off with tens of thousands of dollars in jewelry and other items over the last two weeks. All six burglaries took place in the village's northwest side during the afternoon to early evening hours while the homes were unoccupied, according to police. It's too soon to determine whether it was the handiwork of one burglar or burglary crew, said Deputy Winnetka Police Chief Joseph Pellus.

Wednesday's story in the Chicago Tribune on the rising trend of standing desks was the hardest story I've ever written while sitting down. The more experts I interviewed on the long term dangers of inactivity -- even for those who exercise -- the more I felt the urge to stand, walk around the office, or switch from my chair to my stability ball. Several times while writing, I tried to create my own standing desk by propping my monitor on a stack of books until it was eye level. Then I raised my keyboard using books and a slightly unstable 12-pack of La Croix.

For many commuters, Metra trains are like mobile offices, so a dead battery in a laptop or iPhone can make for a frustrating, unproductive ride. Solution: Install power outlets so passengers can use their personal electronic devices or recharge them. The outlets are among several new features Metra is adding to a fleet of refurbished 1990s-era coach cars that the commuter line unveiled Tuesday. Other amenities include new toilets - they actually flush, as opposed to the old ones - upgraded seats, improved doors that retract like those on elevators and rebuilt air conditioning units.

There was no new iPhone, no new iPad and certainly no news about the long-rumored TV set, but Apple still had plenty to say at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference Monday. CEO Tim Cook announced a refresh of the company's laptop series, a forthcoming series of advances to the iOS operating system and the long-awaited arrival of Siri on the iPad. The iOS changes, which are likely to affect the largest swath of Apple users, are substantial. iOS 6, which will launch this fall, will include a significant upgrade of Siri.

Chicagoans need to do a better job of minding their laptops, according to a new report from Absolute Software, a Vancouver-based firm that provides theft recovery services for corporate customers and consumers. Based on 13,818 theft investigations that Absolute conducted in 2011, the company determined that Chicago was the No. 1 theft locale in the U.S., accounting for 12.5 percent of the thefts in the top 20 cities. Houston was next with 11.9 percent of incidents, followed by Detroit with 11.3 percent.

By Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO, June 1 (Reuters) - Engineers at Intel Corp are applying lessons from aircraft design to create sturdier laptops in a bid to reduce the prices of the new ultra-thin computers the top chipmaker is promoting heavily. Intel is counting on the super-thin laptops, a category it has dubbed ultrabooks, to add some pizzazz to a PC market languishing due to the growing popularity of Apple Inc's iPad. Models expected later this year will have large touch screens, "instant on" responsiveness and razor-thin dimensions - all expensive features that have left some on Wall Street wondering if they might be too expensive for average consumers.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's Quanta Computer Inc , the world's top contract laptop PC maker, said on Tuesday that April consolidated sales totaled T$68.03 billion ($2.32 billion), down 25.7 percent from T$91.51 billion a year earlier. The figure was also down from the previous month's T$76.31 billion. The company did not give further details. For a table on Quanta's website, see http://www.quantatw.com/Quanta/english/investment/financials_ms.aspx ($1 = 29.3700 Taiwan dollars)